Daily Devotional for Saturday, July 22

The Replacement and Retribution

“For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king,” (1 Samuel 15:23).

I worked with a young man that was in a supervisory position. Everyday there seemed to more to do than we could accomplish in the time allotted. The manager would line out what he wanted done though we had much more than just what he told us. This young man would consistently decide that there were other things that needed to be done before doing what the manager had told him to do and accordingly, he would fail to accomplish all that he had been directed to do. As a consequence of his disobedience, he was demoted, replaced by someone who would follow direction, and sent to another department. Like this young man, king Saul only did partially what God had directed him to do (1 Samuel 15:19-22). As a result, God decided to reject and replace him as king over Israel and replace him with someone better (1 Samuel 15:28).

We do not always know exactly why God does what He does, or why He does not do something that we think He should do. God had a reason for the directions He gave King Saul, but Saul was more worried about what the people wanted instead of what God wanted (1 Samuel 15:24). We should be more concerned about what God tells us than what the world thinks, “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell,” (Matthew 10:28). While we may not understand why God wants certain things, we can rest assure that His thoughts and ways will always be better than anything we could think of (Isaiah 55:9).

JUST A THOUGHT: Does God need to get someone else to do what He has asked you to do?

Tim Chambers